Prevalence of Violence in Quentin Tarantinos Movies - Essay Example

Prevalence of Violence in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds Two of Quentin Tarantino’s film, Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds depicted so much violence to the point that it was done casually and nonchalantly. Pulp Fiction was shown in 1994 which was written by Tarantino and Roger Avary. It starred John Travolta as Vincent Vega, Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace, Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge and Samuel Jackson as Jules Winnfield. It was a highly acclaimed film which was nominated for seven Oscars. The nomination included Best Picture which suggests that it was a great movie. Its writers Tarantino himself and Roger Avary won the Oscars award for Best Original Screenplay. It also won in the critical award giving body Cannes Film Festival with the award “the Palme dOr. The film Inglorious Basterds is more recent film (shown in 2009) and again written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It starred Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine, Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa), Eli Roth as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, Michael Fassbender as Lt. Archie Hicox, Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark, Daniel Brühl as Fredrick Zoller, Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, Denis Menochet as Perrier LaPadite, Sylvester Groth as Joseph Goebbels, Mike Myers as Gen. Ed Fenech and Rod Taylor (Winston Churchill). Although the film directed against the German Nazi’s, the movie still got a positive review from the German press when it was shown in German theatres (Itzkoff). Both films contained Tarantino’s “hyperbolic violence . . . [being] a constituent of his work as the reams of dialogue” (Dargis). The films were situated in separate settings and different time in history yet both have the same central appeal of violence. Although Tarantino is already renowned for making quality and almost surreal films, this “hyperbolic violence” which is always present in Tarantino’s film is just too prevalent and used too casually to the point of nondescript that it desensitizes his audience. These two films are set in violent circumstances. The more acclaimed film Pulp Fiction was set against the backdrop of Los Angel mobsters where criminality is rampant and the “Boss” rules the day. This makes the theme of violence convenient because violence is the language spoken and understood by the mob. The script is also peppered by expletives and even if it displayed wit and humor, it still promoted the culture of gangsterism where hoodlums were not depicted to be profane but seemingly an acceptable people. Allan Stone in his review about the violence in Pulp Fiction observed that Tarantino “deliberately violating the conventions of action-violence films, Tarantino reimagines stylized moments of violence and exaggerates them until they are almost surrealistic”. Stone’s review was short of saying that violence in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is just too much and sometimes unnecessary such as the scene in the film where Vincent (played by John Travolta) accidentally shot a young man’s face (Marvin, played by Phil LaMarr) and treated with amusement in the film. Maslin may not have mentioned the excessive violence in this film of Tarantino but his review has a shade of repulsion with the thematic violence in the film putting it as “nothing is predictable or familiar within this irresistibly bizarre world”. The same is true with Inglorious Basterds where the story was situated in Nazi occupied France during World War II. While the story line can be said to be almost predictable to be another “war movie”, Tarantino’s violent treatment of the film made it a relative standout. The protagonists, Lt. Aldo Raine (played by Bradd Pitt) and his eight Jewish soldiers, were set out to remove the scalp of their Nazi victims, get them into a movie house and burn them alive. Meanwhile, the little girl Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) whose family was massacred by Col. Landa became a movie owner who was also bent on extolling her revenge on the Colonel. Nazi occupied France story could have been told in numerous ways but Quentin Tarantino preferred to remove the scalp of their victims. In one scene, where Lt. Aldo Raine captured the Nazi, the officer was asked to pinpoint the location of the German army. Naturally, the officer, being a professional soldier “politely refused to cooperate” which prompted him to be violently killed by a baseball bat. In this scene, there was almost a reversal of roles where the Nazi’s looked as the good guys and Aldo and his band looked as the bad guys with their brutality. This brutality, of which Tarantino does not only seem to exaggerate but celebrate in his film had been admitted to be excessive that even Roger Ebert commented that “of course nothing in the movie is possible, except that it’s so bloody entertaining“ due to Tarantino’s extremism in portraying violence in films. All of the film critics who reviewed both Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds were almost in unison in their observation of Tarantino’s specialization of violence in his films that he even takes it to the extreme. Their wordings may be different but they essentially say the same thing. Stone put Tarantino’s violent articulation in his film as “deliberately violating the conventions of action-violence films, Tarantino reimagines stylized moments of violence and exaggerates them until they are almost surrealistic”. While I agree that films portray life bigger than it is, filmmakers should also exercise some form of restraint in portraying exaggerated violence so as not to desensitize the audience that makes it to be seemingly acceptable. Maslin and Ebert may not have directly cited Tarantino’s excesses of violence in his film but it was still evident with their euphemisms when they commented that “nothing is predictable or familiar within this irresistibly bizarre world” (Maslin) and “of course nothing in the movie is possible, except that it’s so bloody entertaining” (Ebert). Their comments were short of saying that Tarantino drew blood in his films at an unbelievable level that it came to the point of being bizarre and impossible. Of course critics are critics and they have to be articulate when they make their review but they would have just said that there’s just too much violence in the film to the point of repulsion that its gore should not be central in the film. There is no question about Tarantino’s talent as a film maker. He is one of the rare breed of moviemakers who can both write and direct his own film. This talent of his is validated with the various recognitions he got from prestigious award giving bodies such as Cannes and Oscars. His other films were also equally celebrated such as “Kill Bill” who was also equally recognized for Tarantino’s brilliance in making films. Only that Tarantino seemed to celebrate violence and blood in his film because all of his films seemed to revolve around a singular theme of violence. Somehow, Tarantino seemed to inject gore and violence in his movies even if it seems incoherent with the entire film structure such as the accidental shooting of the boy in the film Pulp Fiction. It was so unrelated that the film can still stand even without that scene yet it was there. Perhaps that scene was injected to satisfy the violent requirement of Tarantino in the scenes of his films. Also, the German officer in Inglorious Basterds could have been just killed as a prisoner of war. But no, Tarantino would like to shock his audience by having him brutally killed by a baseball bat. In this scene, it is so violent to the point of revulsion. Indeed Allan Stone was right that Tarantino exploits spectacular violence and appeals to our basest instinct that degrades rather than edifies. Tarantino that pushes hard against the accepted norms just to make his film stand out. The only trouble with this differentiation effort of Quentin Tarantino is that he desensitized his audience in the process of making violence too common in his films. Works Cited Dargis, Manohla (August 20, 2009). Inglourious Basterds (2009): Tarantino Avengers in Nazi Movieland. http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/movies/21inglourious.html?pagewanted=1 [accessed May 04, 2012]. Ebert, Roger (August 19, 2009). Inglorious Basterds. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090819/REVIEWS/908199995 [accessed May 04, 2012] Maslin, Janet (September 23, 1994). FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: PULP FICTION; Quentin Tarantinos Wild Ride On Lifes Dangerous Road. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE5DA143AF930A1575AC0A962958260 [accessed May 04, 2012] Stone, Allan (1995). Pulp Fiction. http://bostonreview.net/BR20.2/stone.html [accessed May 04, 2012] Read More